


Must Come Down

by RurouniHime



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Developing Relationship, Immortal Violence, Immortality, Immortals, Introspection, Light Angst, Loft fic, M/M, Non Canonical Immortal, Past Animosity, Pining, Recovering Friendship, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:21:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2195028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There wasn’t much about his body that Methos wasn’t aware of at the moment. Every single thing ached, if not acutely, then in the fashion of a barely-there bruise deciding whether or not to take full shape. Even depressing the intercom with the tip of his finger hurt. “Open up. It’s me.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Must Come Down

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what I intended to do with this fic. Probably bask in the perpetual loveliness that is Methos-pain. Oh well. Enjoy!

There wasn’t much about his body that Methos wasn’t aware of at the moment. Every single thing ached, if not acutely, then in the fashion of a barely-there bruise deciding whether or not to take full shape. Even depressing the intercom with the tip of his finger hurt. “Open up. It’s me.” 

He could feel Duncan faintly on the other side of several walls and a ceiling. Outside the dojo, the temperature was dropping steadily. Methos sighed and leaned closer to the intercom. “Come on, Mac. I’m a little unsightly. Your neighbors—”

The lock buzzed and Methos pushed his way inside, went through the atrium and prodded the elevator to life. Duncan’s Presence grew steadily with each foot ascended, until Methos couldn’t stop the shiver on its way through his limbs. He’d never asked, but he knew that Duncan felt the difference, the strange intimacy that even months of tiptoeing around each other after the shared Quickening couldn’t disperse. Methos suspected he’d know that Presence for the rest of his life.

As expected, when the elevator gate opened, Duncan didn’t even have his sword. He did have a glass of wine in hand, cradling it like a brandy snifter, and he wore loose-fitting exercise pants and a blue t-shirt with little holes near the collar. His eyes narrowed as Methos stepped into the cloying heat of the room.

“A little unsightly? Hell, Methos.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He got the gate closed before Duncan could change his mind and push him back through it, and made for the couch, stripping off the tatters of his coat. His sweater was already stiffening and he could feel Duncan’s gaze hot on his shoulders. “It’s not all my blood, don’t fuss.”

“How much of it is your blood, then?” Duncan did not sound reassured. It was understandable, Methos supposed, considering just how red his sweater was. Or how brown. Whatever.

“Oh, roundabouts this patch.” He gestured as vaguely and widely as he could at his torso and let Duncan sigh behind him. “Look, could I just have your shower first? I’ll be much more amenable, I swear it.”

Duncan waved his hand at the bathroom doorway, and Methos went.

**

He did feel better after. It was nice to be right.

“Your water pressure is to die for,” he sighed, sinking back into the couch. He loved this couch. Very comfortable, this couch. It was exactly the kind of thing Duncan _would_ buy. It fit his personality so well that Methos would not be surprised to learn it had achieved spontaneous sentience and begged Duncan MacLeod to buy it right there on the display floor.

“Mm,” Duncan grunted halfway through a swallow of his wine.

Methos struggled upright. “Just how long have you been here by yourself, MacLeod? If _your_ appreciation for socializing has already atrophied—”

Duncan sighed. “Methos.”

“—then I’ll offer the polite suggestion that you burn this place to the ground and rejoin our horrible collective.”

Duncan rolled his eyes but sat up straighter himself. “You’d probably dance around the inferno like it was a bonfire.”

“Like a funeral pyre if you don’t save this exquisite piece of furniture first,” Methos said, stroking over the soft suede with his entire hand. Duncan snorted.

“Knew you only came for my couch.”

“Better than for your beer.” Methos made a show of relaxing back, creating a nest to lounge in amongst the pillows and the blanket that had slipped down over the back. He caught Duncan’s nonplussed look. “Hey. It’s not good to be alone for so long. I’m doing you a favor.”

“Yeah, yeah.” But Duncan didn’t offer a real argument. Methos was caught between the vindication of being right (again) and the worry of the same.

“There’s no need to be alone,” he said, feeling around for the words he wanted. “Eventually there may be, but don’t court it. Plenty of time later on and then everyone will be gone and it’ll be too late for anything but nostalgia.”

“Well.” Duncan waggled his head, begrudging. “You would know, I suppose.”

“You’d be surprised how lonely it is, living through eternity.” So many years. He’d never thought about it in such bald terms before. He suspected his subconscious knew it was too painful to do so. If he peered too closely at his solitude, he wouldn’t be able to carry the weight.

 _How I cling to you, Duncan MacLeod,_ he thought abruptly. Acidic laughter tried to bubble over. _In words of such petty, poetic drivel._

It was ridiculously sad.

“I don’t think I’d be surprised,” Duncan said, looking at him expectantly. Methos cursed himself. He hadn’t meant it to be especially thought-provoking. Just one of those things one said to sound worldly-wise and fill the silence. Only there hadn’t been any silence, and why _had_ he said it, anyway?

Duncan was still talking. “What I can’t imagine is what you’ve gone through in that regard.” His tone was low. Serious. Dangerous ground to tread. Methos was once again shocked—and impressed—by the amount of determination the man possessed. If it was closed, tear it open; if it was hidden, drag it out. He never could simply let things be, because things never just got better, or solved themselves. 

No, that took human effort like acceptance and forgiveness.

“Take recent events, for instance.” Duncan sniffed at the remnants of his wine and rolled it around in the bowl of his glass, watching it coat. “I wouldn’t know what drives a person—someone who has survived several millennia, mind you—to go looking for death in dark alleys, if not to end the loneliness.”

Oh, he should have known. Methos took no pains to hide his exasperation, his sigh loud enough to halt Duncan’s words. “Good lord, Mac, you act like I’m suicidal.”

Duncan was shaking his head. “You spend your considerable skills on avoidance for years, no, for centuries, and you tell me that this one could not be avoided, had to end in a veritable bloodbath?” He sounded abruptly angry. He jerked a hand toward the sodden mess that was Methos’ sweater, and Methos winced.

“Hardly a bloodbath.”

“You were drenched in it,” Duncan countered. “Your hands, your face. Your hair, Methos.”

Yes, the water in the tub had been awfully pink. Methos grimaced. “Well, some of them don’t see eye to eye with you on the rules of a fair fight, do they?”

“Who was it?”

“In the grand tradition of all our antagonists, it begins with a delightfully strong consonant.” Methos smirked. “Kareth, I believe his name was.”

Duncan stopped full out and stared at him. His face had been wiped clean of any traces of humor. Methos found himself wishing after them, just one more moment. 

“Kareth.”

“Yes.” 

Duncan rubbed a hand over his face as if cleaning the name from his lips. “Methos… God. What are you still doing here, sitting on my couch?”

It took him too long to gather the full meaning, and then he couldn’t help it: his eyes widened. “Oh, no. MacLeod.” How to explain without explaining everything? “His goals were… slightly more focused than most.”

“Were.”

He didn’t speak, and Duncan watched him. 

“You shot him.” Duncan spoke in the tone of one observing newly falling rain. “Didn’t you?”

Methos shrugged. “Eventually.”

He liked the way Duncan’s mouth turned down at the corners, realized he lived for the disapproval as much as anything else. Like gently teasing a child, and Duncan MacLeod always rose to it. Methos waited, nerves humming.

“And then you took his head?” Duncan’s tone was dour and dark. But the waiting humor faded instead of growing, leaving Methos alone with his sobriety and an uneasy twitch to his fingers.

“Actually, I didn’t,” he responded quietly. He found himself searching Duncan’s face, not his expression but his _face,_ the tilt of his neck, the rapidly beating pulse at his throat just where the collar of his shirt draped. There was a fleeting ripple as Duncan’s shoulders tensed, tendons tightening along his throat. Methos felt the distinct need to blink, and fought it.

“You didn’t.” Duncan’s words had no discernible emotion in them. Just the sense of having been startled from him too early. His mouth thinned. And then Duncan wasn’t looking at him anymore, and Methos very nearly craned his neck down to catch that gaze. Suddenly it was on him again. “Why not?”

There were outrages to let loose, if he wanted to. The _don’t you trust me_ s and _why, I would never_ s. They were too redolent of energy he no longer had. Methos memorized the chisel of Duncan’s jaw and searched for properly discreet explanations. “Not entirely sure,” he said at last. “I felt the inexplicable need to be noble.”

Duncan’s face had curved into the lines of fascination. Almost disbelieving, but not quite. He sat back slowly until he was against the back of the couch, and settled both hands on his thighs. “Well, that’s… hmm.”

“Yes. Hmm.” He thought about leaving the room, taking himself out of the limelight at least for a little while. Let Duncan contemplate it all for as long as he liked; Methos would be just fine extricating himself to go wallow in the shadows somewhere. As long as he was in the loft, in Duncan’s general vicinity, he— But even that was supposition. Methos wasn’t yet sure if he’d be allowed to stay. 

“He was after me,” Duncan said. “Wasn’t he.”

Not even close to a question. Duncan’s voice had altered to the point that Methos might have been in the room with an entirely different person. He froze, his body simply reacting to sound. As if Duncan had come into possession of a gravitational pull. 

“How do you figure?”

“Well, you’re not going anywhere,” Duncan answered calmly. “I can tell. You’re planning to stay for a while. You want him dead, you’re just _itching_ for it. But you won’t do it.” He got up. Walked over. Methos imagined he could feel the heat radiating from Duncan’s body, he stood so close. “For whatever reason.”

 _As if you don’t know._ He felt like spitting it. But that gift was gone; Duncan had all the power, had for some time, and Methos hadn’t even realized his weapons were falling to dust.

“Methos,” Duncan murmured.

Methos drew away, off the couch and heading for the fridge. For once, he didn’t want a beer, but hell all afire, he’d drink one if the situation demanded.

“Imagining things, Highlander.” He opened the door and retrieved a chilled can with a shaking hand. “I could leave right now. If you’re feeling cramped.”

“Are you?” 

Unfair. That was _his_ game, taunting, answering questions with questions. Being an all-around arse when there were people who needed irking. Methos wrenched the tab all the way off and flicked it against the wall above the fridge. It hit with more force than intended and skittered down, out of sight. He turned around fast and settled back against the refrigerator door, sipping. Eyeing Duncan over the top of the can. “I could be.”

For a second, just a second, Duncan reconsidered; Methos saw the flash of it over his features. It pulled up conflicting emotions, words like _wait_ and _finally_ and _bullseye_ and _don’t._ The beer can was partly crushed in his grip before he reined himself in. He considered setting it down but decided he wouldn’t give Duncan the satisfaction. 

Though which contest he was trying to win, exactly, he wasn’t sure.

Duncan went back to the couch, but didn’t sit. He slid his hands into his pockets and leaned his weight on one foot. “So then, if he comes here—”

“He won’t,” Methos snapped. The thought was appalling.

“If he comes here, I can challenge him properly, and you’ll be here to oversee the situation.”

Methos pointed to Duncan with his beer hand. “You do that and I really will take his head.”

“Will you.”

His muscles jittered tenfold. “It’s either that or shoot him again and make you take it. But you won’t. You don’t know what’s good for you.”

Duncan inclined his head at that. “I’ve got some ideas.”

Worrisome. “Well, don’t enlighten me. I’m sure I won’t agree.”

“Hmm.” 

Methos tried his beer again, but it tasted especially sour and he couldn’t fight the grimace as he swallowed. And all with Duncan _watching_ him. “Do you mind?”

“No.” Duncan didn’t move, but Methos couldn’t shake the feeling of being steadily hemmed in. “Don’t drink it if you don’t like it.”

“I like it.” It was disgusting, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe the case it had come from was a dud. Maybe it would taste better splattered all over Duncan’s face and throat.

Oh, hell.

He choked a little and finally clunked the can down on the countertop, determined not to collapse into a coughing fit over a stray thought. Not as though he hadn’t had that sort of image in his head before. If he’d just taken that arse’s head, he could have blamed this on the Quickening and not—

Something else.

“Did he hurt you?”

 _Again_ with the tone change. Methos blinked, aware that he was in the room with a killer. Not his killer, obviously, but someone who had shed enough blood to taint a voice in just such a way. “What are you doing?” he asked as drily as he could.

“Figuring things out,” Duncan returned. Methos could not escape the fixed gaze and he didn’t try. Just nodded. Wished he had his beer again to hold between them.

“No,” he muttered. “I’m fine.”

“You were bleeding at some point.”

“He was bleeding at a lot more points.”

Duncan’s shoulders rose and fell. “Not sufficiently enough, obviously.”

Maybe Methos was just stupid tonight. “So,” he tried after too long a pause, “you’re angry.”

Duncan just looked at him. “What do you think?”

He didn’t know what to think. He just wanted to sleep, preferably on the bed, but the couch would do, and that would put him between Duncan and the elevator anyway just in case they were both too wiped out to react quickly enough to unwanted visitors. “Fine. Be angry. But give me blankets and a pillow first.”

Duncan’s mouth twisted into a strange, considering bent, eyebrows rising. He wandered into the miniscule hallway that led to the bedroom and pulled open one of the drawers there. Some rummaging, then he came back with a pile of neatly folded sheets and blankets. He padded across the living room barefoot, winding around the other chairs, and Methos came forward, the knot in his gut uncoiling at long last. 

“Thank the prophets for Scottish hospitality.” He reached out. Duncan put the pile in Methos’ hands, but when Methos stepped back, Duncan startled him by clenching fistfuls of the bottom blanket. Methos froze again, staring over the bedding at Duncan. Duncan stared right back.

Methos looked down pointedly the bedclothes. “I’ll just take the couch, then.”

“I don’t think you will.”

Methos looked up again, caught the tail end of a glint he didn’t entirely recognize flitting through Duncan’s eyes. He felt his own mouth open, and knew he looked baffled. It wasn’t a look he liked wearing. “What?”

Duncan pulled inexorably at the blanket they both held, drawing Methos a step closer. Methos looked down at his own hands twisted up in the fabric, at Duncan’s fingers locked tight round his end.

When he raised his eyes again, he saw it. Just for an instant, the thick up-thud of a heartbeat, and then it was gone. But Methos’ immediate future remained, strung tight behind Duncan’s eyes like a reflection on a mirror’s surface, and the image caught at his lungs.

Duncan gave the blanket another, more forceful, tug. 

Methos let go, but it was too late: Duncan darted forward and caught him. Fingers gripped at the juncture of his elbow, skin still tender from the bite of Kareth’s blade. Methos let out some sound, and Duncan’s eyes went dark, digging heat under his skin. Duncan threw the blanket aside. He slid the same arm under Methos’, hitched him up and forward, a roll his body couldn’t help emulating, and as soon as he touched Duncan, came into direct contact with that heat and muscle, everything narrowed down like a scythe, cutting light away except for one focused strip of color.

Dark and tan, and the blue of a t-shirt.

“I’m not angry,” Duncan breathed. Methos thought he might have imagined the words. “If you don’t kill him, I will.”

“Just like that.”

“Not at all.”

 _Why?_ The word wouldn’t cooperate. And then Duncan gave him his answer anyway, finding the hitch of Methos’ pulse with his lips— _teeth_ —under the curve of his jaw, latching on, pulling Methos the rest of the way in with a single jerk.

Methos found himself panting, eyes raised to a corner of the ceiling, his vision fuzzy around the edges. He inhaled, sharp, and the fog cleared, just as Duncan’s teeth shifted, just as Duncan arced his hips closer. Methos took Duncan’s face in a firm grip and turned it up to meet his, kissed him as gracelessly and desperately as all the words he couldn’t get out, suddenly clamoring to be heard. Felt. Methos would _make_ Duncan feel them, licking and laving, seeking every corner, every unique flavor. Duncan forced both hands into Methos’ hair and urged him even closer, until Methos had to pull back or pass out, and for a long moment, he didn’t care which.

They moved across the room, though in which direction, Methos couldn’t say. He pushed forward, getting his hands up under Duncan’s shirt where all the bare skin lay, digging his fingers in too hard, but he didn’t— _couldn’t_ care. Couldn’t get enough regardless of what he did; Duncan was too far away. Duncan yanked the borrowed shirt up over Methos’ head, grazing his nose painfully, got his hands under Methos’ arms and lifted him just enough: Methos wrapped one leg around Duncan’s hip, climbing his body, and Duncan turned. Stumbled a few feet, and shoved him off. 

Down.

Methos landed on Duncan’s bed with a thump, one hand still caught in the other man’s shirt. He cast around, blinking, unable to trace their steps from the living room to the bedroom, but they must have gotten there; here they were. Duncan tore his t-shirt off and flung it away, lunged forward and kissed Methos again, so hard their teeth clicked. Iron burst against their tongues, and Methos licked it away, sucked the hurt right out. He used his legs, his arms, everything, molded his body as close to Duncan’s bare flesh as he could, and yanked him down on top of him. The man’s weight flattened the breath from his lungs; Methos blinked blotchy darkness away, dazed for a second too long to catch up again when Duncan slid his palms up his sides, over his chest, and attacked the hollow of his throat.

“Do you even _know—”_ It started as a growl but ended in a fragile, shattered place. Methos was left shaking under Duncan’s half-voiced question, staring at a face he barely recognized and yet knew _so_ well, well enough to dream about it every damned night. Methos’ throat clicked as he swallowed; he affirmed his grip on Duncan’s nape, trying to think. To sort through.

His skill utterly failed him. Duncan had taken apart too many pieces in just those few, precious minutes. Before—Methos couldn’t remember before, the person he’d been just moments ago, hurting in such a keen, constant way and not realizing, _never realizing why._

He didn’t hear the sound he’d made until after it was gone, the misery of it ringing oddly on the scant air between them, and Duncan gazing down, open in a way he’d never been. The frankness morphed frighteningly fast, gathered strength and depth. Duncan tucked a hand under Methos’ knee and hitched his leg up along his side, locking them together and rolling down, driving upward right to Methos’ core. Methos gasped, snapped his head back to the blanket, pressed Duncan’s head down without realizing. Duncan mouthed his chest, lingering too long to be comfortable just at the arc of his ribs. Methos felt himself flush and dropped his hand from Duncan’s nape, but Duncan was already lifting himself off. Unruly dread took over—Methos acted without thinking, snapping a hand around Duncan’s arm to keep him there. His other hand shook as he shoved at Duncan’s pants, forcing them off. A second later, Duncan had him by the belt, fingers nudging his hips off the mattress and tugging his trousers down in the same motion. Methos kicked them off, wrapped his legs back around Duncan, pulled him back into place again, and _this_ time—

“Oh, god,” he panted. Duncan silenced it with another messy kiss, gliding up into it sinuously, turning it into a rhythm unexpectedly primal and far too early, but Methos couldn’t have stopped. He reached down, urged them together until Duncan fumbled around and grabbed one of his hands, pressed it flat to the bed beside Methos’ head, and squeezed with each thrust, their fingers tangling together. He kissed the side of Methos’ thumb, inhaling sharply through his nose. Methos couldn’t look away, couldn’t even think, nothing but Duncan, Dunc— _“Duncan—”_

He arched up, full bodied. Did it again, hadn’t felt this so precisely in ages, just needed to—to know it, him, get closer, get under Duncan’s skin like Duncan had gotten under his, and punch it up a little, remind Duncan that he still had power, that there was danger here to both of them. He wasn’t sure it was the truth anymore. He could feel Duncan’s length tight along the crease of his hip, friction and heat, wanted it in him, but there was no time for that, they couldn’t possibly, not without pain and they’d had enough of that, but later, next time…

The image of doing this again but even closer, even deeper—was it. Methos wrenched Duncan’s face around and bit at his lips, heaved up at the hips, kicked them over and pressed Duncan flat on his back. Crawled over him and—not kisses, no form to them anymore, just breath and taste and sounds passing between, blood on his lip or Duncan’s, didn’t matter. He insinuated his arms under Duncan’s back, brought their bodies together, clung and thrust, and felt it when Duncan’s muscles all stiffened at once, even the fingers he had clenched around Methos’. Methos lost hold of it in his own climax, groaned loud into the skin just beneath Duncan’s ear, and huddled there, his body in tremors. The clearest thing he felt, twin brands on his skin, were Duncan’s hands now gripped tightly over the backs of his thighs.

He came back to himself kissing Duncan’s hair, mouth pressed open against his throat where the salt of sweat tingled and he could taste each thump of Duncan’s heart. He gasped out of it, panted into the sheets instead. Curled his back and didn’t like the distance it put between their bellies. Duncan moved, a determined twist, and pulled them together again. The stimulus was too much. Methos keened.

Duncan lifted his face, caught his lips and used the kiss to drag him the rest of the way up. He tongued into Methos’ mouth again and again, and what Methos had mistaken for urgency became another, even older and more mortal, rhythm. Just a kiss, lasting for ages. Duncan plied his mouth just as surely as he’d plied his body, but there was something sedate in it now, something tired, sated, enduring. Somnolence drifted up through Methos’ body as slyly as if he were being drugged. He wove his limbs around Duncan’s body and clung.

**

God. What… had they done?

Methos gazed blearily up at the ceiling, dazed. Hungry. All manner of things. Confused and not confused at the same time. Warm, because of Duncan’s heat draped across him. The room was still lit, of course, a warm golden light from the tasteful lamps and earthy decorative tones of the loft. It had only been a couple of minutes.

Duncan breathed heavily into his neck, the heat uncomfortable and damp. Methos’ whole body felt over warmed, suddenly radiating all the buildup away. He blinked as sweat slid into one eye. Rubbed a hand over his face.

And what _had_ they done?

If Methos put the wrong name to it, he’d regret the fallout for the rest of his endless life. His mind struggled not to affix words, but they came anyway, currents welling up from the darkness, closing his throat and tightening his grip on Duncan’s body.

Duncan stirred, turned into him even more. Methos hadn’t been aware there was any room left between their bodies, not clothing, not even space for sweat. He thought about letting go, forcing his limbs to unlock. But something in him would not do it. Could not be asked to leave, not now.

Not—

He covered his face with one hand, and when he pulled it away, Duncan was raised up on one elbow, looking at him.

“Don’t be noble,” Duncan murmured, emphasizing the first word. Methos stilled. Duncan bent his head and pressed a lingering kiss to Methos’ bare chest. 

“With you?” Methos asked, finally finding his voice. It was weak and tattered, but there.

“With me.” Duncan held his gaze, the turbulence banked but still roiling underneath, still ready to surge up and engulf. Methos’ pulse sped again, leaving him lightheaded.

“Older than nobility, MacLeod.” He sounded drugged.

Duncan nodded. “What I’m counting on.” 

He leaned in like a python enthralling its prey. This time, under that first calm surface, there was nothing placid about any of what came after. 

~fin~


End file.
